The End of the Gamble: The Termination of the Virginia Lotteries in March 1621*

The sudden cancellation of the Virginia lotteries during the first sitting of the parliament of 1621 was not part of a general parliamentary attack on monopolies but a calculated political act intended to pressure the Virginia Company of London to pay more taxes than required by its charter of 1612. The appropriate context for considering the cancellation is the financial difficulties of James I and the search for funds by Sir Lionel Cranfield. The cancellation coincided with a rejection of a new charter for the company, possibly incited by Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador in England. The cancellation of the lotteries was the most important turning point in the history of Jamestown and started the company on its downward spiral.     

TIME,NARRATIVE, AND FICTION: THE UNEASY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RICOEUR AND A HETEROGENEOUS TEMPORALITY

In Time and Narrative, Paul Ricoeur confirms the relationship between time experience and how it is epitomized in a narrative by investigating historiography and fiction. Regarding fiction, he explores temporality in three “novels of time” [Zeitromane]: Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, and À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust. Ricoeur perceives the temporalities as homogeneous; however, in my view, the novels contain at least three different temporalities. Mann seeks a new temporality by ironizing a romantic time of rise and fall and Woolf configures a time we can call the simultaneity of the dissimultaneous. In his analysis of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, Ricoeur explicitly dismisses a Bergsonian approach to temporality. In my opinion, Bergson defends a heterogeneous time that is apparent in Proust's novel.     

Identifying activity areas in archaeological soils from a colonial Virginia house lot using phytolith analysis and soil chemistry

Environmental archaeology methods can uncover both house lot organization and economic adaptation practices when applied systematically in conjunction with traditional archaeological research. This is the first study to employ both phytolith analysis and soil chemistry to interpret activity areas on an archaeological site. The patterning in the phytolith and soil chemistry analyses from the site of Rich Neck Plantation, Williamsburg, Virginia, reveals a set of six activity areas in and around the 17th century house lot, demonstrating a degree of economic diversification generally attributed only to 18th century colonial economic and social transformations.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

One of the few maps made by the indigenous population of the Americas and dating from the early eighteenth century to have survived, either in original or copied form, is the subject of this article. The map, on deerskin, was given to the new governor of South Carolina, Francis Nicholson, by an unknown Native American. Entitled A Map Describing the Situation of the Several Nations of Indians between South Carolina and the Massissipi River, it has generally been attributed to the Catawba nation. After situating the map in its historical period and detailing the claims for a Catawba origin, these claims are refuted and evidence supplied for a Cherokee origin.     

Taphonomic evidence for site formation processes at fort Christanna

Fort Christanna was an early eighteenth century Indian trading post on the western frontier of Virginia. This paper describes and interprets the faunal remains recovered during three seasons of excavation at the site. Taxonomic and body part representation are examined to gain insight into diet on the frontier, food provisioning at the fort, and the relationship between the fort's occupants and the neighbouring Indian settlement. These interpretations are limited by the poor preservation apparent in the faunal assemblage. The patterning of a variety of different surface modifications is explored to understand the taphonomic history of the assemblage. These characteristics of the assemblage seem to be related largely to the bone refuse disposal practices of the fort's occupants, and thus give important insight into a crucial aspect of the site formation processes.     

“To Put into Complete Practice Those Hallowed Principles”: Edward Coles and the Crafting of Antislavery Nationalism in Early Nineteenth‐Century America

Edward Coles is famous for his decision to liberate his enslaved property and his political activities in Illinois during the 1820s. Few scholars, however, have recognized that this was merely the opening chapter in a life‐long struggle against slavery. His career in Illinois and his subsequent effort to promote emancipation in Virginia are arguably more significant because those struggles led him to construct an antislavery argument that united principle, prejudice, and the recognition of a shared antislavery past. Cast under the banner of antislavery nationalism, Coles’ approach to the problem of slavery was uniquely designed to appeal to Northerners and the Southerners alike.     

Power and Agency in Antebellum Slavery

This essay synthesizes conclusions about the agency of enslaved people drawn from three books by William Dusinberre: Them Dark Days; Slavemaster President; and Strategies for Survival.     

“Talk & talk & talk”: Virginia Woolf's responses to Ireland

The complexity of Virginia Woolf's relationships with Empire can be illustrated by considering her responses to Ireland. Woolf's relationship with Ireland and Irish writers has received only cursory attention. Those critics who have addressed the topic have assumed that she responded positively to her experience of Irish “talk” on her holiday in Ireland in 1934. However, her response on that holiday reveals some underlying imperial presumptions and a sense of Ireland as stereotypically a land of “talk, talk, talk”. Indeed, this is in keeping with her responses to a wide range of Irish writers over many years (most notably, it chimes with her reading of Ulysses). This essay brings together for the first time Woolf's comments on Ireland and Irish writers, from her diaries, letters, essays and reviews, in order to show that she consistently characterised them as loquacious. Ireland was thus merely a subject of talk, a “question” that could only by discussed, and then only in stereotypical and liberalist terms. Further, Woolf associated talk with looseness and bad writing, and sought to maintain a mode of semi-privacy, apart from the “talk” that went on around her.     

Feature Reviews

Abstract

Thomas Jefferson, in his Notes on the State of Virginia, first published and distributed to the American public in 1787, presented his mature thoughts on politics, amid a vast array of themes reflective of his own encyclopedic studies. The diverse contents and unusual form of the work have often led modern readers to neglect its overarching political purpose. We argue that when read as a unified whole shaped by an explicit literary structure and rational method, Jefferson's Notes lays the foundation for a new science of republican politics. By engaging and revising key aspects of both the Bible and Enlightenment science, whenever either asserts authoritative claims beyond rational scrutiny that obscure or distort nature, Jefferson overturns false idols that impede our inquiry into natural laws and natural right, and the proper grounds of republican government.